Program

Quantum Computation
August 12, 2002 to December 20, 2002

Organizers
Dorit Aharonov, Charles Bennett, Richard Jozsa, Yuri Manin, Peter Shor, and Umesh Vazirani (chair)
Description
Quantum computation is an intellectually challenging and exciting area that touches on the foundations of both computer science and quantum physics. It provides the first credible challenge to the 'modified Church-Turing thesis,' which states that any 'reasonable' model of computation can be efficiently simulated by a probabilistic Turing Machine. Indeed, quantum computers can factorize integers in polynomial time, thus calling into question the security of much of modern cryptography. The breakthroughs in quantum error-correction call into question established wisdom about the stabilization of quantum states, and together with the experimental success in small-scale quantum computation this area has already had a significant impact on quantum physics.

Quantum computation and information theory have drawn on a number of mathematical areas, including computational complexity theory, group representation theory, topology and information theory. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that sophisticated mathematics will play a central role in further developments in the field.